Pascal's Wager is Bullshit

First, an apology for the fonts of the last post. Copying and pasting into Blogspot isn't really all that smooth, and I'm too lazy to actually fix it.

Now: Pascal's Wager:

Quick summary of Pascal's Wager:

Either the Christian God is true or He is not true. Also, total payoff of any action = payoff in this life + payoff in the next. Payoff in this life is finite - let payoff of belief be a, and payoff of non-belief by b in this life. Now suppose He is true with probability x and not true with probability 1-x. This means that belief will have an expected payoff of x*(infinity) + b, while non-belief will have a payoff of a - (x)(infinity). Clearly, no matter x, the expected payoff is infinitely high for belief and infinitely low for non-belief - thus belief is the logical choice.

There are several problems with this argument. The first (and already fatal) error is that x could easily be 0 (very common in probability functions with infinite possible outcomes), in which case payoff for non-belief is a and payoff for belief is b, and it's easy to see that it's possible that a > b. The second is that the Christian God would probably not take kindly to belief based on "cowardly bet-hedging" (a Richard Dawkins quote) and probably still send you to hell if this was your basis of belief. The third, and, I believe, most fundamental is that it is assumed that belief is neutral if God doesn't exist - but I counter that this is false since there is the possibility of the anti-Christian God who does everything the Bible says except He sends only Christians to Hell and only non-Christians to Heaven. In this case, non-belief will pay off infinitely and belief will cost you infinitely. In reality, religion is based on non-logic, so there's no solid 'evidence' for any religion, so the anti-religions must be weighted the same as the religions of the world. This means that it's a toss-up whether any belief will cost you or pay off - so there is no indication whatsoever about next-life payoff, so it cannot be accounted for in our strategy considerations.

Also, I have an offer for any and all who are convinced by Pascal's Wager. You send me $10,000 today and when I receive it I'll send you infinitely much money. Not only that, I'll guarantee that you go to heaven when you die.

Now, obviously I could be lying about the infinite money and the guaranteed heaven thing, but hey, if there is the slightest chance that I'm right then probability theory says you should send me my check. I'll be looking forward to receiving yours.

Essentially, Pascal's Wager rests on (a) bullshit ideas about probability, (b) the idea that God likes it when people believe in Him for selfish and conniving reasons, and (c) the idea that either the Christian God exists or no God exists - a false dichotomy.

The Parable of Joe and Ahmed

Whatever else may be said about Christianity, this much is true:

In Christianity, belief in Jesus and repentance means eventual salvation, no matter the sins committed before the repentance. Lack of belief in Jesus means eternal damnation, no matter how moral and upright you are in every other aspect of life.

Now we consider the following hypothetical:

Suppose Christianity is true, and suppose two twin brothers are born - they are identical in every way, so much so that given identical situations they will respond in identical ways (yes I know this goes against my ideas of free will, but we already assumed Christianity is true so we're clearly not operating in my philosophical system). Now suppose they are separated at birth and are taken to live in very different places: one is taken to Arkansas, named Joe, and baptized. The other is taken to Riyadh, named Ahmed, and made a Muslim. Given the religious statistics of Arkansas and Riyadh, it is quite likely that when Joe dies he will be a Christian and go to heaven, while Ahmed, being Muslim, will go to hell (if you wish to argue that Christianity saves moral Muslims, (a) it doesn't, and (b) then replace Riyadh with Chennai and Ahmed the Muslim with Vikram the Hindu - Christianity certainly doesn't save ANY Hindus).

But why was Joe saved when Ahmed wasn't, when, if their circumstances were switched, it would be the other way around? It follows that circumstances have influence over salvation, so that a person in Arkansas is much more likely to be saved than a person in Riyadh. This means that not all people are equal before God since God allows some to live in Riyadh (decreasing their chances of heaven regardless of will) and others to live in Arkansas (increasing their chances). This is not only an injustice of an unimaginable scale (since some people will be eternally tortured merely for having been the victims of baseless prejudice of God), it is also a self-contradiction of the notion that all men are equal in God's eyes and all have equal chance at salvation (which incidentally is in the Bible).

The only ways I can see around this contradiction are (a) to deny parts of the New Testament, something Christians can't really do, or (b) say that God knows who is more worthy and more likely to believe in Him and places them purposefully in Christian households - but again this goes against the logic of the parable of Joe and Ahmed (which is Christian logic, if I can call that logic) and implies that Arabs, Hindus, Jews, etc. are evil in general since God has seen fit to place them in positions where they will not be saved, i.e. it inherently implies racism. If you are indeed a Christian racist, I have nothing more to talk to you about and hope you get yourself shot or run over by a bus as soon as possible. If you are Christian and not a racist, I'm interested to hear your response to this - I'm always open to sharpening my arguments and fixing my logic (I really doubt anyone can convince me that the logic here has a fundamental flaw in it, but if you can, then props to you).

Any thoughts?

Religious Hate-Fest!

1: Christianity

Christianity is the largest religion on Earth, with ~2 billion adherents worldwide. This effectively makes it the largest reactionary force and hindrance to science in the world. I also hate its self-contradictory and faux-righteous position on stem cell research. It’s also the #1 big social problem plaguing America, which pisses me off because America rules. For example, it put that dolt Bush in office for two fucking terms. And I hate the Pope, the old fart, with his big money and his billion reactionary adherents.

Redeeming Features: It’s adaptable. I can respect that. It adopted multiple pagan rituals, and gifts and chocolate eggs rule. Also, I like the Christian Scientists because they don’t take medicine, and hence die off a lot faster.

2: Islam

Islam is the second largest religion on Earth, and the fastest growing. Also, although most Muslims aren’t international terrorists, most international terrorists are Muslim. Eat shit, you politically correct assholes. It also happens to be the #2 threat to both America and Israel (after Christianity and Judaism respectively). I hate the Ayatollah. I hate the fact that its adherents tend to be among the most reactionary in the world. I hate almost everything about it.

Redeeming Features: None. The whole religion is inflexible bullshit.

3: Judaism

Judaism is the ‘parent’ religion of both Christianity and Islam and happens to be the #1 threat to Israel’s survival, because the religious right wing in Israel is full of fascists who want to massacre every Arab within 1000 km. It also bans pork, shrimp, and cheese-steaks, which is bullshit as all three are delicious. And it’s ‘holy’ book is about the most vitriolic, vile, racist (the Chosen People? come on, you assholes!), classist (except for Hinduism) thing around (this article may be vitriolic, but it ain’t racist – religion is not race, motherfuckers).

Redeeming Features: Hanukkah (latkes!), Purim (Hamantashen!), Woody Allen, Jon Stewart, and Albert Einstein – although I attribute these features more to the ethnic side of Judaism (which I love – it’s why I love Israel) than the religion.

4: Confucianism

Confucianism is the main reason China went from superpower of the medieval world to scared, pathetic giant being crushed by Japan during WWII. It’s focus on family and being close to home meant that China never expanded its economy and never developed the colonies that made Britain the uberpower it eventually became. Also, most of my mom’s bullshit ideas about how I should live come from here.

Redeeming Features: “If we cannot understand men, how can you expect us to understand ghosts and gods? For me, I respect them and I stay away from them.”

5: Lamaism

The most retarded religion in history. And actively trying to ruin its own country. ‘Nuff said.

Redeeming Features: Funny hats

6: Hinduism

One of the biggest religions of all time, thus one of the most damaging. Also is to this day inherently classist and racist, with the caste system one of the main reasons the Indian mathematical super-genius Ramanujan was not able to achieve the entirety of his enormous potential. Also, it says cows are sacred, which is stupid.

Redeeming Features: The Kama Sutra, baby.

7: Buddhism

Deliberately made up of contradictions. “Buddha is Mind and Buddha is not Mind”. If you assume a contradiction any statement is provably true (logic, motherfuckers!), so guess what, jackass, your pants are now officially and provably on fire.

Redeeming Features: The original version as laid down by Siddhartha Gautama seems quite reasonable and moderated (more a philosophy than a religion), but I don’t know enough. If it did start out well, it sure didn’t end so well. Also, not violent enough to be hyper-destructive like the Western religions.

8: Scientology

These people are dumb enough to believe some shit some guy made up – and to pay him for the privilege of hearing more. I mean, it has both “science” and “ology” in it as well – it must be true! All this happened while he (the founder) was alive. At least the authors of the Qu’ran and the Bible and the Torah are all dead, so it doesn’t feel as much like shit some guy made up last night while reading bad fanfiction. The adherents of this religion are the dumbest people on Earth.

Redeeming Features: Aside from being hilarious, it was started for the profit motive and worked damn well. L Ron Hubbard, I salute you for your sheer balls and the way you suckered thousands of people out of their money. Also, it’s one of the few religions to actively and directly make its members poorer.

The Greatest Enemy

Sentience that desires its own destruction can never last long in this universe, for, as soon as it acquires the means, it ends its own existence. Therefore, as a general rule, sentience desires its own continual existence. Non-sentience has no desires, as it is non-sentient (gotta love the tautologies). Thus, when a non-sentient entity comes up against (i.e. becomes mutually exclusive with) a sentient entity, all morality and preferred outcomes lie with the latter.

It is for this reason that I wish to see sentience spread across the universe; from our launching point on a blue water planet orbiting Sol in the Milky Way, and from our other probable launching points throughout space and time, the goal is the projection and preservation of sentience throughout space and time. Even if individual sources are snuffed (like Earth would be in the event of a major nuclear showdown), given the enormity of the universe and the possibility of new wellsprings, sentience should eventually spread to every habitable corner and preserve itself there.

What stands in the way of the progress and growth of sentience throughout the universe? What is it that will, inevitably as it seems now, end the dream of everlasting life?

Our Great Enemy is what seems like a harmless physical construct - but one that stands ready to destroy any civilization no matter how strong and advanced and widespread.

The enemy is Entropy. Should entropy prevail over the universe, there will be no more energy, no more sentience, no more order in the chaos. To prevent this is the ultimate goal of science: the victory of sentience over entropy, of life over death. This is why science and free thought cannot, MUST NOT be hindered. The rewards of success are infinite, as are the consequences of failure. If there is the slightest chance of success, we must attack the problem with all the energy we possess.

Perhaps Entropy is unbeatable, a law with no exceptions. Perhaps all the time and effort will not pay off with infinite sentience and civilization. But, perhaps sentience can find a cure. Hell, perhaps sentience IS the cure (this is not as dumb as it sounds). And then we will not need to look to other lives for our eternal rewards that we crave. We'll have truly earned it - in this life.

Eschew Obfuscation

To "deconstruct" philosophy [...] would be to think - in the most faithful, interior way - the structured genealogy of philosophy's concepts, but at the same time to determine - from a certain exterior [...] - what this history has been able to dissimulate or forbid [...] By means of this simultaneously faithful and violent circulation between the inside and the outside of philosophy [...a] putting into question the meaning of Being as presence.

- Jacques Derrida, taken from my favorite all-time source of truth, Wikipedia.

"In order to make myself recognized by the Other, I must risk my own life. To risk one's life, in fact, is to reveal oneself as not-bound to the objective form or to any determined existence--as not-bound to life", meaning the value of the Other's recognition of me depends on the value of my recognition of the Other In this sense to the extent that the Other apprehends me as bound to a body and immersed in life, I am myself only an Other as Ego.

- Jean-Paul Sartre (with explanation, which is even sadder, also from Wikipedia)

A student asked Master Yun-Men (949 C.E.) "Not even a thought has arisen; is there still a sin or not?" Master replied, "Mount Sumeru!"

A monk asked Dongshan Shouchu, "What is Buddha?" Dongshan said, "Three pounds of flax".

- Two Zen Koans. You have three guesses as to where I got it.

It is perhaps with extreme risk of ridicule for committing the same sins in my "My System" posts that I criticize what seems to be a staple of philosophical thought, especially starting with Existentialism and much of Eastern thought (i.e. Zen and Taoism - Confucianism I condemn as harmful and short-sighted, but it is at least comprehensible and makes some good points). This staple is what appears to be the deliberate use of confusing language in philosophy. This is not good philosophy! If a philosophy is so tangled and confused as to be completely incomprehensible, this means (a) nobody can check the underlying logic, so it probably has logical holes you could drive an aircraft carrier through, and (b) it actually probably is too vague and the terms it uses too ill-defined to be logical anyway, which is a much worse form of (a), since the good use of logic usually straightens out a system by default. And this makes the philosophy (a) probably wrong, as in its assertions are flat-out not true, or (b) almost definitely useless, as a car with unusable controls or a map with no relation to the territory is useless - any attempt to use it will either lead to a horrible accident (car analogy) or to getting completely lost (map analogy). That is all I have to say for Derrida and Sartre - I feel that is already enough to dismiss them as lost causes.

For Zen, I have an even bigger problem. They use not confusing language - indeed that koan was absolutely crystal clear in the sense of the literal meaning of the words. But they deliberately cloud the ideas they attempt to transmit, as if trying to let only a select few in on the Big Secret. However, their Enlightenment simply doesn't hold up to even the most feeble analysis. For example, suppose you replaced the Student in the koan with a dreamy show-off eager to ask the Big Important Questions and the master with an eight-year-old with ADD that has just been given a big bowl of candy and shiny objects. Would the koan really run that much differently? The student asks a typical show-off question whose meaning is not easily understood - and being not easily understood is (I cannot stress this enough) NOT GOOD - and the master, being completely distracted, answers with a total non-sequitur. A good check of whether the philosophy can be said to make sense is whether the switching the answers to the questions would radically alter the result. For the two koans I present, the answer is a clear NO. The questions are immensely different, but the answers are both non-sequiturs. This attitude leads monks on 30-year quests for truth when any reasonable truth that this bullshit is hiding could be transmitted in around 3 seconds of plain, logical language.

The Parable of Doubting Thomas

I just noticed that despite my blog's title, there are no rants on it. Just a long boring account of my failure by fiat to create a universal philosophy. Therefore, I figured I'd post a rant on a topic that's close to my heart, and thus by it's sheer stupidity occasionally gives me heartburn.

I speak of the story of Doubting Thomas.

To make a long and mostly nonsensical story (the story of the crucifixion of Christ) short, Christ goes up on the cross, dies because God is too much of an evil bastard to stop his suffering, and a few days later wakes up again with holes in his hands and feet. After appearing to Mary Magdalene and most of the disciples, except for Thomas:

²⁴Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. ²⁵So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord!"
But he said to them, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it."

²⁶A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" ²⁷Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."

²⁸Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!"

²⁹Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

(from http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+20&version=NIV)

It's that last sentence that really does it for me, that brings my piss to a boil, that has skull-fucked the world for the last 2000-odd years. It might seem a natural thing for a religion to say - it is. But it's totally, completely, unspeakably evil. Let me paraphrase: that last sentence essentially says "'Tis a virtue to hold beliefs in total contradiction to any and all evidence encountered before - especially the beliefs I tell you to believe". Sound cultish? It is this attitude towards evidence-gathering and rational thought that has fostered the scientific decay of the Dark Ages, caused the most vile and cruel regimes to thrive (think of the treatment of the "science" of Marxism in the supposedly atheist USSR; they share more with God than they'd like to think) and in general has destroyed millions by the sword and billions by the delay of technical progress (think Galileo or Darwin). Now explain to me again why Christianity (or any other religion, for that matter, especially Hinduism, which disgusts me even more than Christianity - Christianity was at least theoretically egalitarian, while Hinduism is based upon discrimination and callousness towards the lower castes, especially the 'untouchables' who suffer to this day) has been a net positive towards humanity? It certainly didn't save or improve lives, given things like religious conquests and the hindering of scientific progress; it's debatable that religion caused the great artistic achievements, since most people in history lived in a religious context and thus produced religiously-influenced works - and anyway, it's a horribly elitist and callous idea that lives are worth sacrificing for the sake of 'high art' to appease the more 'civilized' people. So, for this one line, and for this whole attitude on rational thought (which a religion is by definition opposed to), I condemn Christianity and all other religions (including Marxism, though Marx himself is probably innocent; he worked with his own data and never insisted on belief without evidence) for the most inconceivably evil crime ever committed against the human species.

Blessed be Doubting Thomas, who insisted on proof and submitted to the evidence. His attitude would much improve the world, and we should all remember his example. That is the true moral of the parable of Doubting Thomas.